Category: Militarism

“Beloved, war and poverty form a kind of toxic symbiotic relationship with each component contributing to the other. The more we wage war, and the war economy, the more poor young men and women die on the battlefield and die at home from the lack of healthcare. And at the same time we’re draining away more and more resources to the war economy, thus creating even more poverty. And when the current situation of escalating war and poverty is seen from another standpoint, from the standpoint of the military industrial political elites who make billions of dollars off of war it is easy for them to justify more war in order to take more resources of other nations and to give crumbs to the impoverished masses in this nation to blind us and keep us from seeing the truth. And that if we saw the truth, we would turn against them. And so we are in this cycle of perpetual war.”— Rev. Nelson Johnson

Rev. Nelson Johnson of the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, North Carolina speaks at The Gathering. Learn more and take action at breachrepairers.org.

Nelson Johnson has been active in the movement for social and economic justice since high school in the late 1950’s. Though involved in a myriad of initiatives, Rev. Johnson centers his efforts on facilitating a process of comprehensive community building, which include a convergence of racial and ethnic diversity, social and economic justice, and genuine participatory democracy. He is is actively building relationships with and providing leadership within organized labor, faith groups and other public and private community organizations.

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“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This is not a way of life at all, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953)

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Defense Secretary Jim Mattis deprioritizes counter-terror efforts and aggressively pursues a massive arms race with both Russia and China. This extremely aggressive stance is exactly why law requires the Secretary of Defense to be a civilian, at least seven years removed from active duty. This law was waived for Mattis’ appointment. Shockingly, Mattis was approved in a nearly unanimous 98-1 vote and still enjoys bipartisan support. We continue feeding the bipartisan military-industrial complex, while ignoring the basic needs of our people.

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Many left-liberal groups ignore the Pentagon’s swollen budget even as it devours resources that could be put to much better use. Sadly, a bipartisan majority in Congress gave [Trump] all he asked for [and] then some. Beyond spending sufficient to provide reasonable defense, military expenditures provide no benefit; they fail utterly to improve our quality of life. The growth in so-called “Islamist terror groups” was largely blowback — the result of and reaction to U.S. intervention in the region. The citizenry would be far better off if our nation abandoned the role of global hegemon, led the world into multilateral disarmament negotiations and redirected billions into investments in our people and infrastructure.—Mark Haim

Mark Haim is a longtime advocate for peace, justice, sustainability and climate action. He serves as director of Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, a grassroots activist group.

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“When a nation has to lie, and get a lying president and actually has to put all of this money into the military to keep other people from hurting it, it’s a weak nation. A strong nation has the moral fabric that people want to be a part of and they don’t want to hurt it because you’re doing good things and you’re helping people to live good lives.”— Rev. Nelson Johnson

Rev. Nelson Johnson of the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, North Carolina speaks at The Gathering. Learn more and take action at breachrepairers.org.

Nelson Johnson has been active in the movement for social and economic justice since high school in the late 1950’s. Though involved in a myriad of initiatives, Rev. Johnson centers his efforts on facilitating a process of comprehensive community building, which include a convergence of racial and ethnic diversity, social and economic justice, and genuine participatory democracy. He is is actively building relationships with and providing leadership within organized labor, faith groups and other public and private community organizations.

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Christian escapism is really bad theology. If God so loves the world, then how does it makes sense that we’re trying to leave it? Rapture theology is dangerous theology because it essentially says that we aren’t stewards of creation – it’s all going to be destroyed anyway so why bother. Oh and war – no biggie, remember, all the unsaved will be killed by God and the earth will be ravaged, so why bother. Makes for great foreign policy, environmental stewardship, and more, doesn’t it? We are called to participate in the unfolding of the kingdom of God right now, here on earth. We’re called on to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick and imprisoned, to go and make disciples. If God wanted to whisk us away, then why on earth would Jesus command us to do these things?

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The chief goal of Fox & Friends is asserting one’s own status by belittling others. Doocy is an expert at keeping things simultaneously light and nasty. Earhardt is the show’s resident softball interviewer. Kilmeade loves mispronouncing certain words in order to mock those who use them in earnest. Their signature tune is reactionary resentment. There are workout segments and cooking segments and music segments, interspersed randomly with deranged political commentary and militaristic iconography. [It] pairs its banalities with a pettiness of spirit. In lockstep with Trump’s reactionary agenda, it yearns for the past while destabilizing the present and future. It is a witch’s mirror, showing you only those things that you hate most in other people, preventing any meaningful self-reflection.

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